Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein
Name
Institution

Abstract
Leonard Bernstein was an American music composer and teacher. He started his music career at Harvard University by studying music. He grew up in the 20th century at the height of the cold war. Later, he enrolled at Curtis Institute of Music where he received further training in his music career. He was known worldwide for conducting world-class orchestras. His musical compositions were also liked by many and therefore led to his worldwide fame. This paper explores his career path and later analyses one of his most famous musical pieces. As a teacher, Bernstein tutored many students, and some later had great achievements in their lives. ‘I Feel Pretty’ is a song composed by Bernstein in 1957. He composed it to be played on the film ‘West Side Story.’ Later, this song was liked by many people, and many artists even replayed it. This paper will analyze the components of this wonderful composition.
Keywords: Leonard Bernstein, Music, rhythm

Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein was an American pianist, music lecturer, conductor, and composer. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 25th August 1918 and died in New York City in 1990, he had become famous for conducting many world-class orchestras (Karlin, 1994). Leonard education commenced at Boston Latin School where he first developed his interest in music. After graduating, he proceeded for his degree course at Harvard University and selected music as his career course. His music training did not stop at Harvard University as he later joined the Curtis Institute of Music where he got exposed to a variety of musical instruments and got a chance for more training on music performance.

Upon completing his education and training at Curtis Institute of Music, Leonard settled in New York where he started his professional career in music as a music transcriber. According to Briggs (1961), Leonard skills and knowledge in music granted them a position as music director of the New York Symphony in 1945. Later, in the same year, he was awarded a prize as the music composer of the year and went ahead to practice teaching as a music lecturer. He is credited from producing some of the most remarkable music performance and producers such as Alfred Strombergs, Robert Hart Baker and John Mauceri.
Bernstein grew up at the time of The Second World War. He had developed asthma that prevented him from serving the military. His time was at the height of the cold war when the country was filled with political tension (Bernstein, 1978). Besides, his family-owned business, and therefore they were well off both socially and economically. He gained fame from his world-class conducting of orchestras and his music.
I Feel Pretty is one of the most memorable melodies by Bernstein. It first appeared in the film West Side Story in 1957. In the movie, a lady named Maria sings about being beautiful and being loved by a wonderful boy. It falls under the classical genre. It is a delightful piece and has a regular rhythm that results in musicality. Bernstein carefully balanced between the consonant and the dissonant sound thereby making the music pleasing to the ear. He also intergraded music from a variety of instruments to produce one pleasant tone.

References
Bernstein L. (1978). Leonard Bernstein, Deutsche Grammophon.
Briggs J. (1961). Leonard Berstein: The Man, his Work, and his World, World Publishing Company.
Karlin F. (1994). Listening to Movies: The Film Lover’s Guide to Film Music. Schirmer. 264.